Yahoo Search is Yahoo's answer to Google. It originally started out as a way to search through Yahoo content and has since evolved into its own search engine for content elsewhere on the Internet. Like similar competing search engines, Yahoo lets users search through Web sites, images, and video. They can even find things close to them through their local search. It also features a stark white and simplistic layout, where the focus is on the results.
Similar to other search services, Yahoo caches content around the Web. This makes it viewable in a limited capacity, even when the site is down or no longer exists.
Yahoo has integrated its search engine into dozens of various Yahoo products and services. Users are also able to integrate it into their Web sites.
Winner: Yahoo (Yahoo.com)
Category: Search
Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia. Instead of being authored by a select group of editors, Wikipedia can be edited by anyone anywhere, and at any time. Wikipedia is available in a large number of languages and has entries about nearly everything. It's become so well known, people consider it an adjunct to Google as a place to find out more about almost any subject.
Each Wikipedia entry gets its own article as well as a built-in discussion in which users can talk about things they want to add or request changes from frequent contributors. There's also a history page that tracks every single change made to the article, as well as a means of reverting back to previous versions in case of disaster or user vandalism.
While Wikipedia pages are frequently the victims of vandalism and inaccuracies, there is a large base of roving editors who do their best to maintain civility and focus.
Winner: Wikipedia (Wikipedia.org)
Category: Search
Wikia is a little bit like Wikipedia, but it's actually a white-paper service that lets site owners add wiki elements to their sites and brand them to match. The site has enabled many to create niche community microsites inside their own services covering all sorts of topics. It also lets users dig in a little deeper than is allowed in Wikipedia's governed environment while still using the same tools.
Since Wikia does all the hosting, users who want to create their own wikis don't have to install anything or pay for servers, hosting, and so forth.
Winner: Wikia (Wikia.com)
Category: Search
Microsoft's Live Search is Microsoft's free Web search tool that plugs into various Microsoft Web properties as well as general indexing for pages all over the Internet.
Users can search for news stories, photos, videos, as well as Microsoft's other Web services like Live Maps and MSN. One thing that separates it from competitors is the Search and Give service, which takes 10 of your searches a day and converts it into charitable contributions to the nonprofit of your choice.
Besides Web searches, Microsoft has a few search tools built into Live.com that let you search books, XML feeds, and the company's questions and answers service.
Winner: Live Search (Live.com)
Category: Search
Hakia is a semantic search engine, a technology that lets users search the Web using everyday word combinations. Also, instead of simply trying to provide popular results, it'll pull in the ones more relevant to the query you're asking--something that's difficult to get right but incredibly important to the future of search engine technology.
Besides its core search, Hakia has a social aspect with a feature called "Meet Others." It will give you the option, from a search results page, to jump to a page on the service where everyone who searches for the topic can communicate. In practice it could connect you with other people looking for info about the what you're looking for, making an ad-hoc support group.
Winner: Hakia (Hakia.com)
Category: Search
Google Maps lets you get directions and find places online. It shows streets, traffic, and satellite images. Users can type in an address and get a pinpoint location or pull up driving directions. Users with a Google account can also partake in the My Maps service, which provides users with simple drag-and-drop tools to chart their own customized maps and share them with others.
Google Maps' biggest claim to fame is Street View, a view level of the map that lets you see a 360-degree view of a street at eye level. Users can explore a photograph of their local streets if they live in one of the cities that has been mapped by the service.
Winner: Google Maps (Maps.Google.com)
Category: Search
Google Earth is a desktop software program that lets users browse and search the earth and its topography. The program takes advantage of specially created data layers that can add all sorts of features to the surface of the earth, including local landmarks, businesses, and any other set of data that have been specially coded to match up with the earth's geography.
In addition to static layers, Google Earth is also capable of displaying moving sets of data, a feature that has been used to show changes to the earth over time, both long and short. One of the most notable uses of this was to show hurricane Katrina's movement into the Gulf Coast back in 2005.
Winner: Google Earth (Earth.Google.com)
Category: Search
Google is the most popular search engine on the Internet and has quickly become a household name associated with Internet search in the same way "Kleenex" is synonymous with tissues. Google works by crawling sites on the Internet and forming associations on what pages are the most relevant. Search "spiders" go out and continuously crawl sites to make it possible to search for anything and get fairly up-to-date results.
The service became immensely popular because of its simplicity and speed. Google.com still takes you to a stark, white start page with a simple form to write in your search. In addition to an enter button, Google has also become somewhat famous for its eclectic "I'm feeling lucky" button, which takes users straight to the top search result's page, skipping the ads that usually associate the results--a move that costs the company hundreds of millions of dollars every year.
In addition to regular Web results, over the years Google has also added search options for pictures, videos, news, blogs, and more than a dozen other Google services.
Winner: Google (Google.com)
Category: Search
Ask.com is a simple and easy-to-use search engine that's not as popular Google or Yahoo, but still very fast and capable of searching the Web. Like competing engines, it lets users search the Web for links, images, videos, driving directions, and news, along with local city listings and shopping links for products. However, one thing it does a little better than the rest is display results from these other search types on the same page, even if it's not main category you were searching in.
Ask.com has had an interesting year. In March 2008, it cut 8 percent of its workforce and refocused its target demographic on consumers. The search interface also received an overhaul, simplifying while allowing users to customize and skin various elements from a large catalog that changes the look and feel of the site.
Winner: Ask.com (Ask.com)
Category: Search
Want to find out more about something? Check Answers.com. The service pulls information from several different reference sites to provide answers to your questions. You get full encyclopedia entries from services such as Wikipedia and Britannica, as well as spelling, usage information, and translations into different languages. Since these other services are updated frequently, entries on Answers.com tend to stay fairly current.
In addition to its Web site, Answers.com also offers a software program users can install to look up any word they come across on their computer, be it in other Web sites, e-mails, or applications. There's also a Facebook daily trivia application and a plug-in for blog owners that will highlight keywords with small pop-up links to content on Answers.com pages.
Winner: Answers.com (Answers.com)
Category: Search
